
CONDENSED INFORMATION ABOUT THE 
LOCATING OF 

METALLIFEROUS ORES, PETROLEUM 
NATURAL GAS, SUBSOIL WATER, ETC. 

BY | 

[electric PROSPECTINGj 

WITH | 

SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS 



BY 

ERNEST W. MILLER 


GEOLOGIST 


619 FRANKLIN AVENUE 
SAINT LOUIS, MISSOURI 
U. S. A. 






CONDENSED INFORMATION ABOUT THE 
LOCATING OF 

METALLIFEROUS ORES, PETROLEUM 
NATURAL GAS, SUBSOIL WATER, ETC. 

BY 

ELECTRIC PROSPECTING 

WITH 

SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS 




BY 

'CjiA v 

ERNEST W. MILLER 


GEOLOGIST 


619 FRANKLIN AVENUE 
SAINT LOUIS, MISSOURI 
U. S. A. 






PREFACE. 


The author feels the need of condensed information to help to 
throw light on a vital question of great economic importance to 
the whole human race—The Electric Prospecting. 

This line of science is only in formative, yet it has been 
already abused by all kinds of imposters and fakers, so that an 
average practical oil man or miner is not inclined to listen to any 
device user, scientific or ignorant; but the time is at the door 
when instruments, based on scientific laws of nature, will help 
the man to locate the treasure houses of mother-earth; and any 
man, regardless how highly recognized authority, attempting to 
deny it, expresses not an opinion, but merely confesses his ignor¬ 
ance. 

The writer claims no originality for any new idea, but acting 
like a judge on circumstantial evidence, has only concentrated 
theories and experiments of many leading scientists, and formed 
them into a whole for explaining the natural phenomena of lo¬ 
cating ores, water, petroleum, natural gas, etc.; corrobrating the 
words of Tyndall: “Taking our facts from nature, we transfer 
them to the domain of thought; look at them, compare them, 
observe their mutual relations, and bringing them ever clearer 
before the mental eye, finally alight upon the cause which unites 
them.” 

This little paper is far from complete, but a boundless field 
is opened for any thinking man in those lines. Here is place for 
many inventions, to benefit the inventor, miner, landowner, in¬ 
vestor and everybody at large. 

“A few words to the wise may be worth mountains of gold.” 
“You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” 
“Prove all things and hold fast that which is good.” “The great 
profits in business come from doing something what others do 
not know how to do. When a line is new, few understand it and 
it offers good opportunities for profit. As it becomes generally 
understood, the profits decrease,” and, finally, “everybody’s bus¬ 
iness is nobody’s business.” 

Our limited space allows only to touch certain questions and 
to point to the unlimited possibility the electric prospecting will 
have in geological works, but the author is preparing for print 
a book intended to serve as a guide for geologist and prospector 
and is especially intended for locating oil and gas. It will embrace 
all known geological methods, will have a chapter about botanicrl 
observations and will treat fully on all known electrical devices. 
It is based on author’s personal experience and on patent records 
of U. S., England, Germany and France. The book will be pro¬ 
fusely illustrated. 

April, 1917. 


E. W. M. 


1 


Theories and Facts. 

While this is an attempt to explain the facts theoretically, 
we have to give due credit only to facts. “Phenomena are alone 
explained by description of their process and functions.” We 
are living in a great mess of mysteries and if we would not ac¬ 
cept the facts without “why”—then, we could not possibly live, 
for life itself is an unexplained mystery, e. g. “From whence 
the force or power emanates, which produces the wonderful phy¬ 
sical phenomona, a human form, by adding to a microscopic, pro¬ 
toplasmic speck, other microscopic atoms; a wonderous influ¬ 
ence of unseen force, intelligent, active, persistent and eternal?” 
That force what, using the words of Arthur Schnitzler, the super¬ 
stitious calls—Fate, the fool—Chance, the pious—God, and Ihe 
wise—Force that has been from beginning of all days, still is and 
works unrestricted in eternity. A single cell of simplest pro¬ 
toplasm climbing in nine months time the many millions of years 
long ladder of slow evolution, emanating to itself billions of like 
itself, building a human form, carrying with it the imprint of race, 
nationality, clan, and revealing resemblance and mental, moral 
and physical effects and defects of immediate parents. Nobody 
ever explained it, and likely never will, the animation, or the 
phenomena called life; yet, we know we live and some of us 
mighty fast, too. Who explains “why” our body, composed of 
75 per cent of water and some 14 well known original elemental 
chemicals, a food burning engine, has something in its gray matter 
for “God like” thinking and accomplishes wonderful results in 
harnessing the forces of nature, and fully rules the physical body 
—its carrier? This intelligence, which, Sir Archibald Geikie said, 
“will make us fellow workers with God.” Yet, we know it is 
so. “I have found,” said President Wilson, “in the course of life 
that the particular thing that you have to surrender to is facts.” 
Huxley and Fleming encouraged the “killing of beautiful hypothe¬ 
sis by ugly fats” and Bacon, in his “Novum Organum,” calls the 
hypothesis “only idol? of theater and the den.” Dr. Geo. C. Simpson 
points out that “our ideas of the axioms of physics are at present 
in such a state of flux that it would be difficult to state exactly 
what they are.” Theories may come and go, but facts remain 
with us, regardless, whether we can account for them or not. 
But, knowing them, we can utilize them to our benefit. 

In an eastern legend, “The Mirror,” Confucius writes that the 
primitive man consid^md everything he was able to understand— 
nonsense, and things ho did not understand were—miracles. Now 
we meet certain individuals " 7 ho are led to believe and trying to 
lead others to b'diov- that thoy know everything. If asked to 
explain phenomena, like one in question here, they dispose it by 
claiming that “thorp ain’t such animal.” It is closing ono S ey«s 
and imagining that others do not soe us. or like ostrich hiding its 
little head under the sand and imagining that all that big bird is in¬ 
visible to the enemv. Not hv shunning and denving the facts we 
can Darn to know thorn and benefit by knowing them. 

Nor are the actions of evorv invention, based on natural phe¬ 
nomena, explainable. C. C. Everett, in “Poetry and Duty,” page 


2 


14, points out that “genuius works less by a process of conscious 
reasoning than by a flash of intuition, and less by abstract concep¬ 
tion than by prophetic beholding of results.” Ever the most ad¬ 
vanced of us are compelled to admit phenomena what no gnosis 
reached to clear. The ancient acataleptics taught that knowledge 
never amounts to certainty, but only to probability. 

New Ideas and Human Conservatism. 

Instead expert, impartial and unprejudiced investigation, the 
electric prospecting and “water witching” have been ridiculed by 
supposedly wise, hopelessly conservative and instinctively shun¬ 
ning any new idea individuals. Others, afraid of ridicule and too 
indifferent to investigate, have willingly submitted to such ruling 
opinion. 

Spencer says: “Nothing obstructs progress more than ignor¬ 
ance and prejudice”—both have been working overtime in this 
case; and Kekule said: “It does not pay to sit back and say: 
‘This cannot be done because it has never been done/ discoverers 
in all lines have just begun to scratch the surface* of human pos¬ 
sibilities.” “The eyes of the masses are blinded by the force 
of established things and it is hard for one to declare his inde¬ 
pendence of conventionality and long recognized authority and 
to be a pioneer to blaze a new path in some undiscovered realm 
of human possibilities.” Sir Oliver Lodge says: “The wide spread 
ignorance of natural facts, ever among our leaders, and consequent 
contempt for investigation and expert knowledge—is a danger.” 
Dr. Woods Hutchison writes: “Your hard headed, practical man, 
who has no use for new fangled theories, is really the most invet¬ 
erate and bigoted theorist on earth, who has inherited half of his 
working beliefs and jumped to the other half on very inadequate 
evidence.” Investigation is fatal to most common beliefs. Dr. W. 
C. Bitting characterizes very correctly our average man, or as the 
Philosopher Lambrozo puts it, “domestic animal,”—in following 
words: ‘Oh, these new fangled notions/ “you may say,” ‘my 
father never taught me that, and I never heard of that.’ “Well, sup¬ 
pose you did not? Does wisdom end with your father or with you?” 
The progress of our days is moving so fast that your father, if 
dead twenty years, was only a mere ignoramus comparing with us 
today and if you are what you learned while in school, why—man, 
you are a back number, a negative cog, more harmful than useful. 
“There is an aristocracy of stand-stillism which presents the 
most marked opposition to advancement,” says Dr. Willard Carver. 
With the phenomenal unfolding of our present scientific era, many 
valuable phenomena, often unrecognizable in mystic garb of suoer- 
stition, were, in most cases without a fair trial, or trial at all— 
condemned, and their believers suffered but little less in the hands 
of modern science than their ancestors subjected to tortures of 
inquisition in middle ages. Every now and then some thinker 
peels off the ages old strange coverings of such facts and finds 
valuable additions to our modern science. Similar is the case with 
our present subject. 

Certain young men, in employ of Uncle Sam, supported by 
some physicians, for narrow minded, professional reasons, after a 


few unsuccessful and haphazard experiments, hastened to con¬ 
demn the so-called “mad-stone” as a fake and fraud. 

The writer, after many experiments, has established as a fact 
above any doubt that certain minerals, under certain favorable 
conditions, coming into contact with animal muscular and nervous 
systems by forming a bridge for opposite electric currents in 
nerves and muscles, effect a galvano-plastic action with resulting 
deposition of the foreign matter on the mineral or “mad-stone. M 
But this will be a case to discuss later, in another paper. 

R. M. Hunter, the master inventor and world-wide known 
scientist, said lately: “I can remember when the exploits of 
Darius Green were accepted as the last word in aviation. I can 
remember when popular science magazines ‘proved’ that the horse¬ 
less carriage could never become a commercial success. As for 
X-rays and wireless telegraphy, they were absurd; as absurd as the 
dream of those ancient alchemists who thought they would some 
day discover how to turn ordinary metals into gold.” Yet there 
is no doubt, that synthetic gold has been found by archaeologists 
in ruins of far East. It is not very much out of place to mention 
that the same savant adds: “I can manufacture gold not only 
from the baser metals, but from common mineral substances, even 
from water and stone. I am making it; I have been making it 
for years.” There is nothing surprising in those claims. The 
possibility of it has been admitted by all leading scientists long 
ago, in fact, since the possibility of transmutation of elements was 
known from experiments of Sir William Ramsay. But, let’s turn 
back to our subject. 

In all ages the world has been too stupid to appreciate its 
benefactors. So it is today. Only coming generations will see 
and value the present day martyrs of progress. It tak s genera¬ 
tions of time to change the mind of masses. “Only a genius sees 
the abtract truth,” while, according to Prof. B-cker’s words, out 
of 25,000 human beings only one can really think. Then, what 
chance has one to make himself understood in anything where 
thinking iss needed? As the quotation from Henry Sedgewick goes: 
“We think so because all other people think so; or because—or 
because, after all, we do think so; or because we once thought so, 
and think we still think so; or because having thought so, we 
think we will think so.” 

“Life” has catalogued the people in the ord^r of <he’r number: 
“Those who do not think, those who think they think, those who 
think wrong and those who think.” 

Seldom a reformer and inventor benefits personally from his 
work. We are used to see him—solus, pauper, nudus. Charles 
Goodyear died practically a pauper, yet others are making millions 
vulcanizing ‘rubber after his method. “Even after the telegraph 
was successfully demonstrated, its inventor. Samuel F. B. Morse, 
had to suffer for years, extreme poverty and misery.” 

“All the forces of incredulity that ignores, the conservatism 
that hates, the ridicule that mocks what is new. w^ro brought to 
bear to oppose George Stephenson’s great invention. Th* very 
idea that a steam drawn train would be capable of traveling at 
a rate of speed equal to the fleetest horses, was ‘a most absurd 


4 


extravagance.”’ It was 1825, yet human mind is not changed. If 
anything new is offered him, what his wild running brains cannot 
comprehend at once—he revolts, or instinctively shuts up his 
valves. “A fool you can neither bend nor break.”—Epictetus, Har¬ 
vard Classics, 2. 

“The printing of books by Johann Gutenberg was called ‘witch¬ 
craft’ and ‘an instrument of the Devil’ by the masses of that day.” 
These masses are still living, though it was 400 years ago. There 
is never end to them. Mothers do not dump them into the world 
wiser now than then. 

“After many years of struggle with obstacles and disappoint¬ 
ments, due to ignorance and malice, Christopher Columbus suc¬ 
ceeded in his enterprise, only to die penniless and broken-hearted 
over the shabby treatment accorded him by the country for which 
he gave so much.” 

“People sneered scornfully when Robert Fulton first endeav¬ 
ored to drive a boat under its own steam.” 

“Insults were heaped on John Ericsson in spite of the splen¬ 
did services given by his Monitor. His idea of revolving turret 
is now used in all modern warships.” The sneers and ridicule of 
supposed wise will not stop the progress of the world, although 
it generally retards it. 

“Only envy, hatred and malice moves the mind of average 
man.” 

“Sir Walter Scott, great as was his admiration for James Watt, 
made various smart jokes about the absurdity of William Mur¬ 
dock of lighting London with gas,” and in the House of Commons, 
Murdock was taken for a crazy man, yet the London Gas Light and 
Coke Company has today a capital stock of $150,000,000.00 and sold 
last year about twenty-seven billion cubic feet of gas. Average 
man is a mental buzzard who cannot swallow any idea which 
does not stink of dead men and their dead ideas. 

“Most of us men are moles,” said Rev. Hubert, “scratching 
their way blindly through life, without thinking or learning,” and 
Rev. Sheldon Griswold adds: “Most people lose themselves in 
some of the every day things of life. They cannot sit down and 
think.” No, indeed not, and they hate to see anybody else doing 
it for them, subjecting them to ridicule and hate. 

“Samuel Pierpoint Langley really died of a broken heart over 
his failure to obtain recognition and support for his invention, yet 
flying machines are today in use, the exact copies of Langley’s 
invention.” Masses must be “shown”—they cannot think, they 
cannot imagine a simple possibility, ever if explained. Only a 
wise man can be convinced and converted—fool never. 

“Galilei Galileo suffered long time imprisonment and torture 
for ‘absurd philosophy,’ claiming that ‘the world revolves.’ It was 
found ‘heretical because contrary to Holy Scripture.’ ” “Pioneers 
and founders of new systems cannot be slaves of old conventions 
and customs.” We see the sufferers for progress in past, but many 
thousands are today on the same thorny road, unseen, unheard. 
Our masses today are in an equal mess of antiquated beliefs and 
non-beliefs towards possibilities in now and unexplored lines. Our 
swell dressed, well fed, supposedly civilized average man, knows 


5 


not more, and cares to know less, about the natural facts, than our 
paleolitic, hairy and naked ancestors, shivering in the dark and 
damp caves and mumblingly gnawing the bones of their kin. 

It has always been so and will be so. Stoic, Tacitus, in Annals, 
about 2,000 years ago writes: “We extol the old and disregard the 
new.” The older an understanding, the more primitive and more 
barbarous it is. Average human being thinks nothing but panem 
et circences—food and fun. Mommsen’s words: “Over whose 
heads the history of a thousand years has passed without leaving 
a trace,” applies here and today. (Historian’s History of the 
World,” vol. VI, p. 85.) 

“The world would not have progressed very much if there 
had not been in every age a few people who had the courage to 
defy the conventions of their time and launch out on somelhing 
new and revolutionary. These are the real reformers, although 
many of them had to give up their lives for their temerity, and 
many more never saw the reward of their efforts left for coming 
generations to realize. This old world would be at a sorry 
standstill if everybody made up his mind that whatever was good 
enough for dad is good enough for me. Inaction is retrogression, 
for nothing in nature stands still—we have got to advance if we do 
not want to slip back. So we are very much indebted to those 
courageous souls who made themselves the targets for the ‘arrows 
of outrageous fortune’ and suffered contempt, ostracism and even 
persecution that we of a later day might find a better way than 
our fathers of old. It will be a sad day* for humanity should 
this breed of humans ever perish from the earth. 

“But what a life it is, to go through the world thinking other 
people’s thoughts, and doing other people’s deeds. 

“The purely conventional, wholesouledly fashionable man con¬ 
tributes absolutely nothing to the progress of the world. As far 
as he can he leaves everything, from dress to morals, exactly where 
he found it, only a little shopworn. He never feels the thrill of a 
little new idea, all his own, never thought in quite The same form 
by anyone else before. In short, he never lives a life of his own. 
He is only a shadow of somebody else. 

“It is better to be distinguished, even by a grease spot, than to 
be a meaningless blur in a crowd.”—Tulsa World. 

“While you labor, dig and seek, 

Dull of eye and gray of cheek; 

While you study, delve, explain, 

Define, example, think refrain, 

Ponder on the meaning of 
Life and death, and joy and love, 

Laws discover, reasons frame, 

Fools are playing at the game.” 

—New York Sun. 

“And there you are,” as Henry James loves to express. 

We were called into this world as co-workers with the infinite 
intelligence, of which we are and remain an undividable part and 
one has no right to hide his own or his neighbors’ candle und«r 
the bushel, that mankind may be lifted higher mentally, morally 


6 


and physically, to fulfill the will and aim of the Good—the gro- 
gress. Not “riding” our brothers but utilizing the forces of nature 
and fighting the ignorance we do our duty and attain the highest 
satisfaction, the Godly satisfaction and the noblest and purest 
joy, the joy of creation, the most elevating feelings what no man 
can know who sees his purpose only in selfish, parasitic and mere 
physical existence, chasing only the flamboyant and tasteless mate¬ 
rialism. 

One reads with pity that some recognized authorities in geolo¬ 
gy think it their duty to express it possibly strong that they know 
nothing and care to know still less about the “forked twig, crook¬ 
ed stick” and other devices. While one must not believe anything 
before fully investigating and convincing himself, it is miserable 
low for a man of education and supposed to be able to think, to 
follow the crowd in their ancient beliefs and prejudices. A man 
of education, without independent thinking ability is as worthless 
for the progress of the world as a plaster pattern of a gold coin 
in the hands of a hungry tramp. 

A great majority of our professional classes, perhaps 90 per 
cent, are hopelessly unprogressive, believing that all there was 
to learn was learned in college. They are glass bottles where you 
cannot put a drop more in today than years ago, while the world 
is moving fast and who climbs not—slides. We would not have 
a legion of all kinds of sects if the priesthood was ready to absorb 
new and useful. We cannot be fed on thousands of years old 
dogmas, even if they were dictated by God himself. Progress is 
the law of nature. ,We have got to move or be crushed by it. 
If physicians, as a class, could not be blamed for the same sin, 
there would not be Christian Science nor chiropractics to contend 
with. 

The same applies to geologists. Average geologist is average 
man, plus training. He is adverse to anything new, like his 
brother, average man—unprogressive, finished on the school bench. 
If all geologists would follow the new scientific discoveries and 
investigate natural phenomena, there would not be ignorant min¬ 
eral rod men disgracing the profession. 

There is nothing to be upheld as absolute and nothing to be 
condemned entirely. Only running water is fit for consumption. 
Only progressive minds are useful. Dogmas, ideas, enterprises and 
governments imposed by demagogic brutes as absolute and not 
subject to improvements, will crumble into dust with their sup¬ 
porters. 

On the meeting of the American Association for the Advance¬ 
ment of Science, in New York City, Dec. 26 to 30, 1916, Professor 
Edwin G. Conklin of Princeton University, speaking on “Biology 
and National Existence,” made these statements, to which many 
called attention: 

“Science holds the key of the future. Our destinies are in 
the hands of not rulers but of investigators. National existence 
depends on the conquest of nature rather than on the conquest 
of nation.” 


7 


Feasibility of Electric Prospecting From Logical Standpoint. 

Your face is the mirror of your soul. A single leaf identifies 
a large tree. A drop of blood tells in whose veins it was pulsat¬ 
ing. Now comes Dr. Berillon with his Ethno-Chemistry and tells a 
man’s race and nationality from a single drop of his blood. Not 
only that, family relations can be detected by the same means. A 
piece of petrified bone is sufficient to build a model of a giant 
animal, extinct millions of years ago. A single act, a single word 
may reveal your life-story. The shape and appearance of a tree, 
like that of a man, tells its sufferings, its food supply, tells about 
the sub-soil, its roots were and are penetrating, tells about long- 
lived regular or unregular seasons and tells what is far below its 
roots. Flowers, insects, climate, grass, water, storm and sun¬ 
shine—all are great open books to read about the locality where 
they are—a great book of an endless source of precious informa¬ 
tion to one who understands to read it. Prof. Swine says: “The 
educated mind understands the language of the field and forest,” 
also of the earth and heaven. If a single molecule is sufficient to 
tell all about the element it represents, if a single individual reveals 
his racial signs and recollects in our mind all the long history of 
his race, which was the cause of appearance of the individual, why 
then not, for one who sees, is a congregation of all such and 
similar signs—the open book of nature where “everything goes by 
law,” a source of endless information? How closely all things in this 
universe are connected by mutual influences, even the farthest 
suns and stars, we see from W. F. Carothers’ methods of fore¬ 
casting twenty-five days and more of storm, f Cold waves and cy¬ 
clones, by observing sun spots. Emerson says: "Let every man 
learn that everything in nature, even motes and feathers, go by law 
and not by luck,” and Henry Drummond says the same in other 
words: “Nothing that happens in the world happens by chance. 
Everything is arranged upon definite principles, and never at 
random.” 

“Natural law is a disposition of things to act always in a 
certain way, which may be reduced to a mathematical certainty. 
This universe is governed absolutely by the laws of nature, 
by which every effect must have an adequate preceeding cause, 
which will, in turn, be parent cause to a successive effect, from 
which we have a rotation of causes and effects or a sequent order 
of nature;” thus Seeing the effects, we can know the unseen 
causes.—“How above so below.” 

The whole universe is an endless chain of ever rotating causes 
and effects. 

“Causes and effects are eternal arrangements, set in the con¬ 
stitution of the world.”—Drummond in Pax Vobiscum, page 58. 

Romans knew the laws of causes and effects: “Me and my 
children if the gods neglect. This has a reason too.”— Marcus 
Aurelius. 

A progressive farmer knows that it would be a folly to plant 
leguminous crops on ground growing blackberries and sour grass 
before draining and “sweetening” the soil. Cattlemen know the 
health of an animal by the lustre of its hair. Dentists can detect 


8 


many diseases through teeth. A good oculist locates many, if not 
all maladies, in remote parts of the body, by looking into eye, 
reading the biography, pathology and prophecy, all in one. A 
single hair under the microscope may reveal your race, habits, 
health and aspirations. A physician cannot see skin-deep into 
anybody’s body, but every malady is accompanied by its own 
visible and feelable symptoms—which are effects of unseen causes. 
Knowing the symptoms—he knows the sickness, and know¬ 
ing the sickness, applies the cure. Geologist cannot see deeper 
into the ground than anybody else, but at his disposal are all 
kinds of guides to unseen causes. Like a lawyer, knowing the 
laws of the country and knowing all sides of a case—is certain 
about a judge’s pending resolution, so geologist, knowing the laws 
of nature, knowing the strict rules of the universe from suns 
to electrons, knowing the many millions of years reaching back 
physical history of the world, helped by chemistry, microscopy, 
botanies, elctricity, and, in fact, all physical science, is able to 
detect effects and applying the laws of nature—knows the causes 
of such effects, and so is able to point to the places where nature 
has stored up its treasures, as a result of complying with the 
laws of the universe. To find the murdered man in the swamp— 
look into the sky for buzzards. 

‘‘The world is the geologist’s great puzzle box. He stands be¬ 
fore it like child to whom the separate pieces remain mystery till he 
detects their relation and sees where they fit, and then his frag¬ 
ments grow at once into a connected picture beneath his hand.”— 
Agassiz, Geological Sketches, sketch i, p. 11. 

One would hardly think that close observing of such widely 
disconnected and apparently meaningless things as squirrels, grass¬ 
hoppers, bees, grasses, tree buds and bark, nuts, snakes, cornhusks, 
weed seeds and a host of other things will enable John T. Tim¬ 
mons, the distinguished horticulturist and weather forecaster, to 
predict weather and seasons. Like coming events are casting their 
shadows ahead, so passing events are writing their story in vivid 
pictures, and long past events have left their hierographs in every¬ 
thing that nature ever puts its hand on. If you don’t see it, if you 
don’t understand it—don’t let that be a cause of denying it. 

Faraday pointed out in one of his lectures, that there are 
“Tongues in trees, books in running brooks, sermons in stones, and 
good in everything.” 

A new line of science in geology is in formative. It is tracing 
the economic minerals by petrified mussel evidence. E. g., Indica¬ 
tive of underground water is the fossil mollusk Inmeramus, or its 
distant relative, Corbula Ungera. The minute Echinodermata indi¬ 
cates coal deposits. Halymenites major and Corbula Undifera are 
also predictors of coal. Halymenites, a fossil algae, is found in 
Rollins sandstone, and is associated with high grade bituminous 
coal. Geonimetes Ungeri, a palm, recognized by its corrugated sur¬ 
face, accompanies a low grade of bituminous vein. Certain kinds 
of coal deposits in each region have their own indicative fossil rem¬ 
nants. Phosphate rocks are associated with fossil Meekoceras. This 
type is found in Anhareb formation, lying 1,200 feet above the 


9 


phosphate bearing rocks in Idaho. A little petrified fossil, dis¬ 
covered in a water well in Louisiana led to the discovery of the 
Spindletop with its 70,000 barrels of oil daily and several clusters of 
oil wells in the same state. A piece of petrified shell, hundreds of 
feet above the petroleum stratum, may lead to valuable deposits. 
A fraction of a pebble hundreds of miles away in some river bank, 
may tell where to look for mineral. 

Now, allow me to point out once more, that each petrified 
species are guides to certain deposits far below. It is only logical 
to ask, why is it so? Why certain living beings or vegetation 
flourished above certain economic deposits and not elsewhere? 
Because the conditions were favorable? But the same conditions 
prevailed not only on certain spots; they were broad. We must 
conclude that electric currents present and characteristic for each 
element, had much, if not all, to do with it. If this occurred before 
Adam was made and Eve fell, when our ancestors, perhaps tiny 
fishes, first time lifted their scantily brained heads playfully or 
food or oxygen seekingly out of Paleozoic oozy slime and then, 
when, (using the remarkable verses, “Evolution,” by Langdon 
Smith) 

“We were Amphibians scaled and tailed, 

And drab as a dead man’s hand; 

We coiled at ease ’neath the dripping trees, 

Or trailed through the mud and sand; 

Croaking and blind, with our three-clawed feet 
Writing a language dumb;” 

then, is it not today so? The original laws of nature are not 
changed. No revolution has taken place in slow walk of evolu¬ 
tion. Then and therefore, it must be so also today, and living 
beings and growing vegetation of our time are also guides to 
economic wealth far below, and there is no real need everywhere 
to dig the graves of our honorable ancestors to locate it. Using 
the verses of Smith again: 

“Our trail is on the Kimmeridge clay, 

And the scrap of the Purbeck flags, 

We have left our bones in the Bagshot stones, 

And deep in the Coralline crags.” 

So everything else in this world has left its “trail,” and read¬ 
ing the massive pages of the great tragical history of the world, 
the pages, often thousands of miles long and wide and sometimes 
thousands of feet thick, the stratified rocks, we see the endlessly 
rotating strange cycles of life and death with its causes and effects 
to the last word of the strict, merciless, just to cruelty, wise above 
imagination and unavoidable laws of the nature. There is no 
forgiving, no exceptions, for it would break the wise laws and 
ruin the order. Nature cares as much for a nematode as for a man. 

It is generally recognized that many, if not all minerals, have 
certain surface indication, e. g., sulphur has white earthy rock 
or borscale, metalliferous veins have gossan of Cornwall, petro¬ 
leum favors or disfavors certain vegetation, etc., what is a direct 
result ofelectro-cheinical action on surface rocks or soil. 


10 


Analysises of Mr. E. T. Wherry, of the U. S. National Museum, 
of the soils of several states, proved that the calciphilous (lime 
loving) plants are found on soils high in both total and soluble 
lime. 

Director of Oklahoma State Geological Survey, Mr. C. W. Shan¬ 
non, in a personal letter to the writer, says: “One of the main 
things from the geological standpoint is that there is such a close 
relation between surface vegetation and surface geology. I believe 
that in many cases where structural relation is such that it cannot 
be mapped from the surface geology, and the occurance of the 
native plants is of great aid in this particular thing. For instance, 
I have been making diligent search for sycamore trees growng in 
the Permian Redbeds, as well as where not influenced by lime- 
stones in the formations. To the present time I have failed to find 
any sycamore trees growing under these conditions, yet just across 
the line of contact on the red Pennsylvanian where, from all 
general appearances conditions are the same, sycamores abound. 
I might also mention a condition in northeastern Oklahoma where, 
while the persimmon is common to the whole region, its occur¬ 
rence on a particular limestone formation is that of peculiarly 
dwarfted growth so that even at a distance the occurrence of the 
limestone region can be picked out. 

“These are only two instances that show the relation of native 
vegetation to surface geology. I have been gathering data on this 
ever since I have been engaged in geological field work and the 
publication is being prepared as a side issue.” Mr. Shannon ad¬ 
dressed the second annual convention of Southwestern Geologists’ 
Association, in Tulsa, Okla., Feb. 9 and 10,1917, about the “Relation 
of Surface Vegetation to Surface Geology.” 

There is something in similarity. Something that is not only 
limited to human face or shape, not only to plants or minerals of 
a certain narrow district or a part of the globe; no, it embraces 
everything, our earth, all planets, the whole universe. “Edward 
Hargraves was so impressed with the similarity between the gold- 
bearing rocks of California and the rocks along the Macquarie that 
he hurried back to Australia and had the. satisfaction of starting the 
peaceful colonies by the discovery of gold in New South Wales in 
February, 1851.” 

By long series of experiments of many naturalists it has been 
established long ago that plant life is and can be stimulated by elec¬ 
tric currents. 

“Some plants need certain metal salts for their proper growth; 
others, when they fake up certain salts, show characteristic change 
in leaf and flower. The violet, Viola Lutea Var. Calaminaria, 
grows upon zinc deposits; the butterfly flower, Amorpna Canescens 
nut, grows on clayey plumbiferous soil in Missouri, and clove, 
Polycarpaca Spirostylis, grows on cupriferous soil in Greenland, 
the ashes of which contain copper.” (Prof. Keischlag). A notable 
vegetable in absorbing minerals is Pacific Ocean kelp, which is a 
good source of potash. The bark of the Brazilian tree Moquilea 
ulilis is a source of silica for pottery industry. Now, admitting 
that there is an electro-chemical change in the ground above min¬ 
eral deposits, then everything coming into contact with it, like 


11 


vegetation, feeding of it, is influenced in its color, shape, health, 
etc. If “you are what you eat,” then this applies also to every¬ 
thing else. So marked are such indications in most cases that one 
traveling, on a fast train, steamboat, automobile, looking into 
binocle miles away, or even observing from aeroplane, can map 
the favorable places where to prospect for certain minerals. It is 
evident that all above described indications will have their differ¬ 
ent electric currents, which can be detected by suitable devices, 
for, as will be explained farther, electricity is the cause of every 
change in nature. 


History. 

The dawn of the history of ferreting minerals and “divining” 
water dates back to the time of the world rule of Atlantis, or far 
beyond modern history. 

The terrible war fire of Greeks and Romans was an inheri¬ 
tance from the gods and kings imported from Atlantis (a great 
island in the Atlantic ocean, now submerged), and is claimed to 
be a mixture of heavy crude oil, unslaked lime and salt. The 
“God-like” citizens of Atlantis were very highly cultured and very 
likely mined the oil on their home-island, which made them devils 
in battle and gods in peace for the rest of the world. 

As far as four thousand years ago a Chinaman, Fu-ke-ehang, 
claimed the ability of locating water and metalliferous ores, and 
Pliny mentions of a Greek doing the same with some kind of an 
instrument. Doubtless, such knowledge, together with all other 
Eastern science was inherited from Atlantis. 

In middle ages, in Christendom, every natural phenomenon 
that did not find explanation in the Bible was condemned as 
“witchcraft” and everybody practicing it was heartlessly tortured 
and ruthlessly destroyed. 

Up to our days science refused to consider any facts, and 
ever denied such natural phenomena, not having ready theories to 
explain them. 

In later years the men of psychic research have done great 
work to call the World’s attention to the endless facts recorded in 
all parts of the world by many eminent men, though it really has 
nothing in common with psychics, if not to consider human slow¬ 
ness to understand it. Only recently science has readily admitted 
such facts and finds its explanation in terrestial electricity and 
already several scientific instruments are invented for said pur¬ 
pose. It is human nature to ridicule and to shun what one does 
not understand, or understands wrong. At the present time, only 
those not following the events would dare to deny the endless 
facts, supported by experiments and affidavits of many eminent 
men. It would be a hopeless task to try to mention all or even a 
part of the facts, but it might be of interest for the reader to 
know that the German Scientific Congress proved the possibility 
of finding water with a forked twig, or like, and that the Prussia- 
government is employing I.andrat Von Usl^r of Anenrade for de¬ 
tecting subsoil water with a common “divining rod,” or a twig of 
willow, or some other tree. By order of Emporor William II of 
Germany, several divining rod men were sent to South Africa 


12 


to discover water in lifeless deserts ,and many good wells were 
the result. Dr. T. Preyer, a scientist and eye-witness, reports 
that on times of the great war Major G., of the German General 
Staff, located many water wells in deserts of Eastern Egypt and 
Palestine, what greatly helped the construction of a railway to Suez 
canal. He used wooden and metallic rods. The writer 
also had successful experience by such methods. In America there 
are several men doing the same, among them Mr. Kellogg of 
Los Angeles, California. 

A Few of the Scientific Instruments in This and Similar Lines. 

In later years the “divining rod” has been developed into 
a scientific instrument for detecting water. Doctors Engler and 
Sieveking invented an apparatus for this purpose, which they 
called “Fontaktoscope,” that is, spring pronouncer. Soon after¬ 
wards Macher and Meyer brought out their “Fontaktometer” and 
a similar apparatus was devised by Dr. Lowenthal. The latest 
invention in this line was made by A. Bergman, an Apothecary 
at Albersdort, Holestein, who claims that his apparatus surpasses 
all others in greater accuracy and sensitiveness. 

For detecting metalliferous ores and petroleum there are also 
several scientific apparatuses invented, some of them on the mar¬ 
ket, some not, for obvious reasons. Thus mining Engineer W. 
Mansfield, and Edwin Mansfield & Company, are marketing their 
apparatus. The Mansfield’s apparatus was tried by the Indian 
Government for water finding. (See Bombay Gov. Bulletin, by 
Dr. Metha, No. 38). While the report was favorable, the apparatus 
is claimed to work too slowly. On account of there not being any 
other more suitable device on the market, F. A. Talbot, in “Oil 
Conquest of the World,” pages 23 and 32-34, claims that, “the 
instrument has been adopted by several of the leading oil com¬ 
panies in various parts of the world.” 

Many of the earlier devices were made on so called “affinity” 
basis. It is widely known that certain elements have a strong 
affinity tq other certain elements, like mercury to noble metals, 
magnets to paramagnetes, etc., and so were utilized to indicate 
the presence of each other. Every piece of matter in the universe 
has an attraction for every other piece of matter, the force varying 
according to Newton’s formula, by the product of their masses 
and inversely as the square of their distance. The affinity basis 
also is explained on electrical theory, as proved by observations 
of Bennett and Fabroni: the affinities serving as best collectors 
of electric energy for opposite poles, the cohesion or affinity 
being an electrical attraction between the atoms or molecules of 
a body. As conductors of such energy can be utilized all known 
conductors, prospectors body and ether. Prospectors body is 
often influenced by many agents, at times unsuspected and un¬ 
controllable, and thus, may mislead. In case of ether the indica¬ 
tions will appear very slowly and at times are also influenced by 
outside agents. Besides that, certain elements have affinity to 
many certain other elements and thus may indicate the elements 
not looked for or not desired. Direct contact prospecToscopes are 
most reliable. These, in turn, are sometimes influenced by chem- 


13 


ical action of local origin, but this can be easily detected by ex¬ 
perienced prospector. 

The late Geo. M. Hopkins invented an apparatus for detect¬ 
ing magnetic ores, which never appeared for sale, though sound 
as his principles were. 

Prof. D. E. Hughes invented the widely known induction bal¬ 
ance for the same purpose, which was later developed by Capt. 
McEvoy into a successful apparatus for detecting metals under 
the water, like ore bodies, sunken ships, etc., and the same method 
modified to some extent by the Paris Academy of Science is used 
now by the French for discovery of buried, unexploded shells 
in erstwhile battlefields. (See Scientific American of Nov. 13, 

1915, page 425). 

U. S. Patent No. 1,126,027 is issued to Dr. Max Jullig for an 
instrument adapted to locate pipes or any other metallic bodies 
in the walls and like, which also is based "largely on the prin¬ 
ciples of Hughs induction balance. 

One of the modifications of Hughs principle is used in Ger¬ 
many for prospecting. Thus we read in “The Tr:aiise on Ore 
Deposits” by Professors Keyschlag, Vogt and Krusch: “The el c- 
tric properties of deposits may also be used in prospecting on 
the surface,” etc. 

Furthermore, one of such modifications is adopted for de¬ 
tecting counterfeit coins and any other alloys. (Hopkins Expe¬ 
rimental Science, pages 572-574). 

In Scientific American of Jan. 8th, 1916, page 61, we read: 
“The application of electric waves to the exploration of the earth’s 
interior was first suggested by Truestedt in 1901 and was subse¬ 
quently and independently patented by Miller. Recently the 
subject has been treated, both experimentally and theoretically by 
Heinrich Loewy, who at first was interested in a purely scientific 
problem, the demonstration of the nucleus of liquid iron which 
Prof. Wiechert conjectures to exist at a depth of more than 1,000 
kilometers. Some preliminary experiments, however, showed that 
facts of great importance to miners can be Earned from the appli¬ 
cation of electric waves to much smaller depths. Newer and appar¬ 
ently more valuable methods are based on the variation of emitted 
waves which is caused by the electric properties of the immediate 
environment. The electrical methods are esocially valuable in cases 
in which they can be employed successfully to locate water and 
ore without boring.” Farther, the same paper relates to success 
of a German Company, organized for the purposes of exploiting 
various methods for electric prospecting. 

Conrad Schlumberger of Paris, France, invented an apparatus 
for “locating ores in subsoil,” coming into direct contact with the 
ground and using galvanometer and potentiometer (see U. S. Pat¬ 
ents 1,163,468-9); but it needs strong currents to indicate and can¬ 
not define what mineral is causing the currents. 

Dr. Infroit’s radiological compass can accurately locate anv, 
even smallest metallic bodies in human body. (Sc. Am. Feb. 5th, 

1916, page 150). There are numerous devices on the market, und o' 
the name of mineral rods and like, some intentional fakes and 
most of them of little or no value. Instruments of real value have 


14 


been jealously guarded by their inventors, for their own use, and 
are not for sale. 

The miner’s compass, or dipping needle is too commonly known 
to need mentioning here, and it is only of use when prospecting 
magnetic ores and near to the surface. It is used with great suc¬ 
cess in Sweden and Norway, where the magnetic ores predominate. 

One of the latest inventions in this line, and perhaps, the most 
developed is that of the writer, who has practiced with it for 
many years in three continents and has found it of incalculable 
value in economic geological works and prospecting. Complete 
maps of sub-soil oil or gas pools or ore bodies can be made at the 
time of prospecting. Useless to say, the prospector must possess 
a good knowledge of geology at the same time, or gross mistakes 
may be made. 

Wm. Dubilier invented an instrument, whereby, in the midst 
of the multitude of great noises of giant steamboats, the feeble 
noise of a tiny submarine is detected and its whereabouts calcu¬ 
lated, what the English used with great effect against German 
submarines. 

Years ago, John Hayes Hammond, Jr., perfected a radio-con¬ 
trolled torpedo, and similar device is patented by Allan C. Canton, 
which by electro magnetic forces detects its prey, miles away, 
and chases it to doom, automatically turning after it, no matter 
how the victim dodges. 

Prof. Briar detects, by the help of seismograph and other 
sensitive instruments, battles, hundreds of miles away, calculat¬ 
ing how far and what nationality cannons are in action, how many 
of them, what size and what make, what was utilized by central 
warring powers for their great benefit. 

Radio direction finder was invented by Frederick Roister, of 
U. S. Bureau of Standars in 1916. 

Electroscope can detect a pin’s head size piece of radium in hay 
stack or buried deep in the ground. Barometer- tells us that 
the atmosphere extends but seventy miles above the earth, fore¬ 
casts weather and calculates altitudes; with the help of telescope 
our sister planets are photographed; we see our mighty greatness 
in microscope and our miserable nothingness in telescope; spec¬ 
trometer tells us the elemental substances constituting our sun 
and stars; bolometer tells the temperature of the sun to be 12,000 
degrees Fahrenheit, and that of the moon icy cold; Coulombs’ bal¬ 
ance can weight the earth; applying scientific laws the mass of 
planets is determined and eclipses predicted. The discovery of 
new planets is predicted by reading the laws of nature, as was 
the case with Neptune, the furthest known planet, so far away 
that a ray of light traveling 186,000 miles in a single second would 
reach our earth only hundreds of years after leaving the planet. 

C. G. Abbott and L. B. Aldrich invented so called “pyranometer” 
for measuring sky radiations, which is so sensitive that the radia¬ 
tions of feeblest and farthest stars, not visible by naked eye, can 
be accurately measured. Wireless is little short of reaching around 
the world. Yet, after all this, one finds masses of seemingly aver¬ 
age intelligence and ever supposedly wise and leading men, unable 
to grasp, how one could detect electric currents directly under his 


15 


very feet and coming into unavoidable contact wilh such energy, 
an energy so enormous that often oil and gas drilling derricks 
are ruined and tools, weighing tons, are lifted out of the hole 
like a piece of cork, aggregating a pressure up to 1,500 pounds on 
a square inch, every atom of it in tumultuous attempt to escape. 
This force, working it way through overlaying rocks, working 
restlessly for many thousands of years, is penetrating it, though, 
possible in small quantities, but in quantities enough to detect it 
by sensitive instruments No rock is absolutely impenetrable. Even 
the glass bottle is not impervious, in absolute sense. 

Scientific Theories and Literature Applicable to Electric 
Prospecting. 

We find many theories in up-to-date science, proving the ad¬ 
visability of electric prospecting. Thus, Prof. James Johnstone, of 
University of Liverpool, says: “Something is irretrievably de¬ 
stroyed in every physico-chemical reaction that occurs. This some¬ 
thing is available energy. Energy, potential or kinetic, that is, 
energy of position or the energy of motion of entities possessing 
mass, which can be made use of in producing or setting up trans¬ 
formations or natural phenomena, is available energy,” 

Prof. Cooke in his “Religion of Chemistry” says: “Electricity 
is the result of every change in the nature,” and we know that 
oil, gas and ores are a result of continuous change, in full progress 
at present. (See Paine and Stroud, “Oil Production Methods.”) 

Prof. R. S. Tarr ,in “Economic Geology of U. S.” points out 
that “vast majority of ore deposits come to their place by chemical 
action.” 

Mr. K. C. Wells, of U. S. Geological Survey* in a Rulletin entit¬ 
led “Electric Activity in Ore Deposits,” speaking about possibility 
of electric prospecting, mentions that “the data here presented are 
believed to possess value in broader investigation of ores, for even 
feeble currents might exert a directional influence on ore deposi- 
lions, and chemical conditions, even at a distance, might be a 
factor in determining mineral association.” The same author, 
on page 16 says: “Rut whatever may be its cause, the experiments 
indicate an effective difference in action between different min¬ 
erals.” 

Interesting characteristic differences between metals in Elec¬ 
trolysis is illustrated in Scientific American Supplement No. 2082, 

Mr. Becker of U. S. Geological Survey, calls attention to the 
phenomenon, that where petroleum is known to be, magnetic devia¬ 
tions are strongest, thus proving the presence of available energy. 

Mr. Bauer’s mans of Geodetic Survey strongly support this 
opinion. (See also Isometric chart of Coast and Geodetic Survey 
of 1015). 

L. L. Hutchison in Bulletin No. 2, of Oklahoma State Geologi¬ 
cal Survey, page 143, points out that “experiments are being made 
in Louisiana to locate oil pools by magnetic anomalia.” 

Geo. F. Becker in Bulletin 401, of Federal Survey, made a 
brilliant attempt to explain “the relations between local magnetic 
disturbances and the genesis of petroleum.” 


16 


The earth, in its normal state, without the presence of in¬ 
creased physico-chemical action, due to mineral deposits, is a fairly 
good electric battery, and not in far future will we know how to 
utilize it for light, heat and all industrial uses. Sidney Aylmer, in 
“Elementary Electricity,” page 221, says: “Hydrogen makes a 
fine positive plate, just about as good as zinc, and oxygen makes a 
very good negative plate.” The earth’s crust contains 47 per cent 
oxygen, 28 per cent silicon, 8 per cent aluminum, 4 per cent iron, 
0.17 per cent hydrogen and 0.12 per cent carbon. 

Prof. Shody discovered that there is some form of radiation 
from chalk and granite cliffs, possible electrical, which causes 
climatic differences in places near together. Ernest W .Miller 
used thermometers and weather bureau reports, among other seem¬ 
ingly disconnected informations, as a great help in /ocating oil 
and gas fields. 

We know all matter is composed of countless atoms. 

The great French Scientist Poincare said: “Each atom is like 
a kind of solar system where the small negative electrons play 
the role of planets, revolving around the great positive central 
electron, which takes the place of our sun. Besides these captive 
electrons there are others which are free and subject to ordinary 
kinetic laws of gases. The second class are like comets which 
circulate from one stellar system to another, establishing thus an 
exchange of energy between distant systems.” 

The last named electrons are the most readily detectable 
source of electricity by suitable apparatuses, wherever they are 
present in larger quantities as normal, like at the large ore bodies, 
oil pools, subsoil streams, etc. 

“The structure of the atom lies not only at the foundation of 
chemistry, but electricity and, in fact, of all physical science.” 
(Sc. Am. Sup. No. 2092, of Feb. 5, 1916). (See about “Structure of 
the Atom,” in Sc. Am. Sup. No. 2093). 

Prof. Hooke, denies the existence of anything without motion. 

Prof. H. A. Wilson’s theory is that each atom is made up of 
a group of electrons, the total number being proportional to atomic 
weight. Thus hydrogen contains only eight units while gold about 
1,600. 

Part of Prof. Moseley’s table of atomic number of elements 
reads: Ga. 20, Ti. 22, Va. 23, Cr. 24, Mn. 25, Fe. 26, Qo. 27, 
Ni. 28, Cu. 29, Zn. 30, et. 

See for table of revised periodic laws in Scientific American 
Supplement No. 2089, of Jan. 15th, 1916. 

Periodic laws of Frankland and Mendeleief show that “there 
is a periodic variation in the chemical properties of elements, when 
arranged in order of increasing atomic weight.” 

Knetic or dynamical theory of Clausius and Maxwell reads: 
“The molecules of gases are supposed to be in continuous agita¬ 
tion. . . ” 

Later investigations hv Prof. Perrin, of so called “Brownian 
Motion” prove that also “in liquids Ihe particles dart to and fro 
in irregular and tumultuous fashion and never appear to he at 
rest for more than a moment.” 

Still later, Prof. Sir Ernest Rutherford, in his “The Constitu- 


17 


tion of Matter and the Evolution of Elements,” says: “On the 
kinetic theory, we thus have strong evidence for believing that the 
atoms of matter, whether in the solid, liquid or gaseous form, 
are in continuous agitation and irregular motion.” The same 
author adds, that “it was soon recognized that atoms of the same 
element always vibrated the same way under all conditions.” 

Prof. W. C. Me Lewis of University of Liverpool, in a recent 
paper, “Capillary and Electocapillary Chemistry” says: “Practi¬ 
cally all particles in the stable colloidal or emulsoidal state are 
electrically charged. In aqueous solution, colloidal metals, sul¬ 
phides and oil emulsions are negatively charged while colloidal 
hydroxides and many organic substances are positively charged.” 
The same is claimed in series of text books by Sir Wiliam Ramsay. 
This is supposed to be a case of frictional electricity, caused by 
ceaseless bombardment of the particles or so called “Brownian 
movement.” Prof. Bancroft claims that “these charges are not 
rigidly fixed and can therefore slip from one molecule to another in 
a sence parallel to the axis of the tube.” 

Maxwell and Helmholtz suggestion that electricity is atomic 
in nature is now definitely established. 

By Swedish Royal Academy of Science, in 1914, the Nobel prize 
was awarded to Prof. Theodore Win. Richards of Harvard Univer¬ 
sity, for fixing the atomic weight of chemical elements. (World 
of Science, No. 2643, British). 

Prof. Huber says: “Each species has its habits, each individual 
its peculiar constitution.” Tne same order is stronger noticed in 
vegetable and still stronger in mineral kingdoms. 

Dr. Van der Broek says: “The total number of unit charges 
on the electrons of an atom is the number representing the position 
of the element arranged according to increasing atomic weight. 
Known elements were found to correspond with all the numbers 
from 13 to 79, e. g. Zirconium 40, gold 79, etc.” 

Roentgen and Becquarel discovered the rays which render 
the gases conductors of electricity. 

Prof. J. S. Townsend, in “Electricity in Gases,” says that “the 
discharges may be explained by the theory of ionization by colli¬ 
sion.” 

Volta, Lavoisier and Laplace proved that electricity was ob¬ 
tained from evaporation of water, from combustion of coal, and 
from the effervescence of iron filings in dilute sulphuric acid. 

Lenard observed that the air near waterfalls is negatively elec¬ 
trified. 

The great German founder of new school of chemistry, Prof 
Wilhelm Ostwald, in his “Scientific Materialism,” claims that there 
is only energy in the universe and the matter is only in our imagin¬ 
ation, which was soon afterwards admitted by Sir J. J. Thompson 
and others. Ostwald also claims that “the energy changes are the 
causes of all chemical reactions.” 

Sir J. J. Thompson once more proved that the Berzelius theory 
viz., that the chemical action is essentially electrical action. 

Harry .Tones, in “New Era Chemistry,” says: “The electrons 
have mass and are moving with enormous velocities within the 
atoms. They, therefore, have kinetic energy and a great deal of 


18 


it. The velocity of an electron is one tenth of the light ” 

Prof. J. E. Southcombe, in “Chemistry 0 f the Oil Industry” 
said: “When we study the results of analyzing a large number 
of commonly accuring substances, such as sugar, starch, resin, al¬ 
cohol, fats and oils, we are at once struck with the fact that they 
all contain only the same three elements, namely: carbon, hydro¬ 
gen and oxygen. Now, the only possible explanation of the fact 
is that substances so dissimilar in their nature and properties as 
sugar and fat can be formed from the same three elements, is, 
that the atoms of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen are united to¬ 
gether in the molecules of sugar in a different way and in differ¬ 
ent proportions to those in the molecules of fat. In other words, 
the sugar molecule possesses a different ‘constitution’ to the fat 
molecule.” 

Sir William A. Tilden, in “Scientific Chemistry,” page 347, 
says: “Chemical combination, then, is an affair of atoms, and 
their joining together or separating is regulated by ‘affinity,’ by 
temperature and pressure, and by the mass or relative quantities 
of the materials presented to each other.” 

Petroleum and Natural Gas. 

Prof. Mendeleief points out that “the appearance of springs 
of petroleum at the surface of the earth shows the tendency of 
those mineral oils to traverse by infiltration the different strata 
of the earth in reaching the surface, a natural consequence of 
their lower density as compared with water.” 

S. F. Peckham in “Solid Bitumens,” page 25, supports Mende¬ 
leief by writing: “It is reasonable to assume, as is now believed, 
that Pennsylvania oil was not formed in the sandstones, but found 
its way there by natural agencies from lower strata, probably the 
Devonian shales.” 

Similarly writes Henry P. Westcott in “Hand Book of Nat¬ 
ural Gas,” page 15: “The fact that the very lowest rocks of the 
Trenton limestone yield the greatest known gas pressure, amount¬ 
ing in New York to 1,500 pounds to the square inch, indicates that 
all of these different horizons are supplied from a common source, 
and that it is not indigenous to the strata in which it is found 
stored. This common source is probably deeply covered by Pale¬ 
ozoic rocks which have been more or less disturbed by folds that 
have produced slight fractures in the strata. These have served 
as vents for the passage of natural gas into the overlying porous 
strata, where it is found today. Many of these sands contain 
large quantities of petroleum, but pools of natural gas are much 
more generally distributed and occupy a much larger area than 
the pools of petroleum, both of which have a common origin.” 

The origin of oil and gas in the lower strata may find its 
explanation of the researches of Heraeus, Huppe, Winogradow, 
and in a recent article by H F. Osborn, in Scientific Monthly. 
Vol. 3, No. 3, P. 280, 1016. The prototrophic or “primitive feeder,” 
a rock eating bacteria, was living on the earth, in its early days, 
in great abundance, and is still found in Alpian mountains and 
other places in Europe. The body of this bacteria is a veritable 
chemical laboratory and it was a cause of fast decaying of the 


19 


rocks, that may explain the presence of the greatest pressure of the 
gas in lower rocks and its later infiltration into younger, over¬ 
laying strata up to the surface of the earth, where it is often 
found today. This is not to be understood as an attempt to dispute 
the proven vegetable origin of the oil of many fields, yet it cannot 
be denied that it is a distillate of the scrap heaps of the world and 
contains almost everything in it. 

That bitumen is very strong in “Brownian movements” was 
proved through colloidal chemistry by Clifford Richardson, pre¬ 
ceded by experiments of Prof. Ostwald, the great German expositor 
of colloidal chemistry. Now the colloids are even photographed 
by placing the lens of a cinematograph camera over the eyepiece 
of the ultramicroscope magnifying 1,600 times. When projected 
on a screen, the colloids appear as large as marbles and exhibit 
amazing activity. The size of the largest colloids are about four 
millionth of an inch in diameter and they cannot be filtered or 
settled out of a liquid, thus finding their way through rocks to the 
surface, where their presence can be detected by chemico-micro- 
scopical, electro-chemical, or, preferable, elctro-mechanical tests 
and botanical observations, and serve as guides, even where 
stratigraphy, petrography and other means fail. 

Missouri Miner writes: “Negative information is not without 
value. It may save oil men expenditure of many thousands of 
dollars in fruitless drilling. ‘Forewarned-forearmed’ applies to oil 
well drilling as much as to weather predictions. As the cost of 
putting down a well is great, drilling should preferably not be 
undertaken in a new region until a careful geologic examination of 
the surface has been made and the most favorabe area determined. 
The geologist can not tell from a study of the surface alone 
whether or not oil occurs beneath the surface, but he can desig¬ 
nate areas in which it is extremely unlikely that oil may occur 
and other areas in which the structure is favorable to the accumu¬ 
lation of oil.” 

After pointing out that “oil and gas are found In nearly every 
formation in the entire geologic series, porous enough to contain 
it,” J. C. McDowel, on Chicago Mining Congress, in Nov. 1916, 
added: “In general it must not be understood that such forecast¬ 
ing is a simple matter, for it is not. At best there are many 
chances of failure, even after a possible trap is disclosed upon 
the surface of the ground. Not only is there a danger of the 
trap flattening before porous strata are reached, but there may 
be no porous strata underneath. Again, there may be some denser 
impervious area intervening on the slope, preventing the oil and 
gas from collecting in the dome or trap; and last, there may be no 
gas or oil in any of the formations tapped.” Above is a correct 
picture of the delicate situation of the geologist without the help 
of electric instruments, which would indicate the presence or 
non-presence of the oil or gas. Any dome not having excessive 
electrical currents, at least at certain places, is hopeless for oil 
or gas prospects, regardless how favorable the strata may lie. 
Every dome is not an oil field. Every cow is not milking. Every 
house is not home. 

While the anticlinal theory of oil and gas accumulation is 


20 


generally accepted and is right, there are, perhaps larger oil 
and gas bearing areas where such conditions are not present, and, 
in possible absolute absence of any surface indications, the elec¬ 
tric prospecting is the only means to determine the location and 
extent of such valuable strata; likewise lands where the rock 
is deeply buried under alluvial or glacial drift, or places where 
it is impossibe to see the structure of the oil bearing stratum from 
surface, in account of it being, either underlaid or covered un- 
conformably, by worn out, crumped and faulted formations of 
earlier or later geological times. In such cases a few feet In any 
direction in locating the well sites, may mean failures or successes. 
Following valuabe lines are written to this account by C. D. 
Smith, of U. S. Geol. Survey, in a Bulletin No. 541, page 45: 
“Where gas, oil and water, which have different specific gravi¬ 
ties, occur in porous medium, like a standstone, where interchange 
of position is but slightly hindered, the tendency is that the gas 
should he forced to the highest available point, whereas the 
oil would lie below the gas and the water below the oil. This 
relationship would obtain, provided the containing medium was 
uniformly porous, but in fact it is not, hence a number of modi¬ 
fying factors, some of undeterminable importance enter the list 
of possibilities that must be considered (page 46), such as lack of 
continuity of Ihe sand in one direction or another, irregular ‘pay 
streaks’ and various other factors undeterminable from mere study 
of the surface strata (page 47). But reservoirs are produced as 
effectively by a combination of monoclinal dip and lack of porosity 
or absence of a sand as by anticlinal structure. The gas and oil 
followed by water, will travel up the rise until a zone in the con¬ 
taining sand is reached, where the sand either pinches out or 
becomes impervious or ‘tight;’ thus, an accumulation of oil and 
gas in a given sand is likely to have an irregular or ragged 
boundary,” what makes it still more expensive, risky and practi¬ 
cally impossible to follow by haphazard drilling. The same 
author adds: “It appears, therefore, that vagaries in the develop¬ 
ment of porous parts or ‘pay streaks’ in a sand may produce res¬ 
ervoirs where little favorable geologic structure is evident.” 

“If oil and water are not associated, the petroleum moves 
downward, along bedding planes and through coarse, porous 
strata, under force of gravity. In such case it may occur in pores 
at the bottom of a syncline,” (Illinois State Geological Survey Bul¬ 
letin No. 16, page 54) where it would be looked for the least by 
a practical driller or prospector. 

Investigations of M. J. Munn, of the United States Geological 
Survey, in Appalachian oil fields (see Economic Geology No. 2 and 
6 of vol. 4, 1909) also prove that the accumulation of oil occurs 
not only in anticlines. The same is explained by L. C. Snider, in 
Petroleum and Natural Gas in Oklahoma (page 16-17); by F. G. 
Clapp, in Economic Geology (vol. 5, No. 6); by W. T. Griswold, 
E. H. Cunningham Craig, and many others. 

All such exceptional, as well as normal cases, can be detected 
by an experienced electric prospector from the surface of the 
ground and all useless expense avoided, making allowances for 
certain exceptions, mentioned in next paragraph. 


21 


Failures Possible. 

There are certain exceptional cases where even the best 
expert, armed by all scientific knowledge and devices, may fail, 
e. g. in oil business, where it would be impossible to determine 
from geological standpoint the depth of the oil bearing stratum 
and the drilling may be stopped short of reaching to it. Instru¬ 
ments would verify the favorable location but fail to indicate 
the depth, though it is claimed by some instrument sellers. The 
valuable deposit may be too deep down to be reached by our 
technical means, yet instruments would correctly indicate its pres¬ 
ence in certain places. Lateral migration of oil and gas in small 
quantity, near to the surface, may be misleading in some cases, 
causing strong currents on account of its nearness to the detecting 
device. Oil not filtered out of shale, in absence of reservoir rock, 
would give oil indications, but would be unobtainable without 
extracting it by refining. Small “tight lense” in oil bearing sand may 
be a cause of a dry hole, though electric currents may not be nor¬ 
mally less on that spot, if the sand is fairly deep down. Narrow 
oil or gas bearing “streak” in heavily dipping strata may be missed 
by miscalculation of its angle of dip, which may be different lower 
down than at surface. Electric currents would be the strongest at 
the point nearest to the source, but in such case it would not 
be the favorable place to drill. Outcrops of petroliferous strata, 
on or near the surface, without the study of geology of that 
locality, would encourage drilling on the strength of electric cur¬ 
rents, yet the weathered strata would not produce in paying 
quantities and lower sands may be barren. Along the cleavages 
of the strata the electric currents travel four timest better than 
cross cleavage and so help to mislead a careless or ignorant pros¬ 
pector at the places where the strata outcrops or pinches out close 
to the surface, though the oil and gas may be retarded by tightness 
of the strata or other causes lower on the slope. Certain oils are 
too heavy to be strained out of sand, or so called rock asphalt— 
causes also oil currents, being it in substance. Like is the result 
in case of asphalt beds. Drilling hole full of water will present 
oil showing up, though it is there and instruments would record it. 
L. G. Huntley, of Bureau of Mines, in Technical paper No. 51, 
states: “In drilling by the wet method in the early days, the 
water pressure prevented some minor oil ‘pays’ from indicating 
their presence. These have since been developed and some of them 
have proven large producers.” Electro-chemical action is about the 
strongest at points of contact of oil with salt water, but such places 
must be avoided as well sites. The strength of the terrestrial electric 
currents, as these of atmospheric, are subject to almost continuous 
change, dependent of many factors, like moisture of the ground, 
humidity of the air, temperature of the ground and air, seasons of 
the year, time of the day or night, distance from poles, barometric 
changes, altitude, chemical composition of the ground and rock be¬ 
low it, and many other factors, like planetary disturbances, aurora 
boi ealis, etc. Terrestrial electricity is at its minimum just before sun 
raise and after noon at hottest time; maximum—just after sun raise 
and after sun set. To know to compensate for such changes, the 


22 


prospector must carry hygromatcr, barometer, ground thermometer 
and other instruments with the prospectoscope, otherwise mistakes 
may occur, unless the same ground is prospected under all condi¬ 
tions and several times. Some guidance can be had from producing 
wells in neighborhood, where this is possible. The electric cur¬ 
rents near a well are not to be depend 'd as a guide if all the 
conditions are not fully known, e. g., at the start of the production 
the currents are larger than normal for the quantity of the pro¬ 
duction, owing to the increased migration of the hydrocarbons, if 
the flow is hindered, like the case is with flowing wells and 
gassers, while later they gradually decrease, until, at the exhaustion 
of the well the currents are small, similar to ground where no 
hydrocarbons are present. Such conditions may not be, or are 
very slightly noticed if there are more productive sands below 
the drained one. Therefore, the electric prospecting, wherever 
possible, must not be taken as a sole guide, especially in new and 
unknown territories. Most, if not all, of the above mentioned 
failures can be avoided by a careful study of geological conditions. 
Thus, it is evident, that a certain degree of risk remains in this, 
like in every other business, but it is reduced to minimum with the 
help of skilled elctric prospecting, and up-to-date drilling methods. 

Conclusion. 

As in Miller’s, so in other instruments, and so in common 
“divining rod,” or whatever name or device it be, the electricity is 
the indicator. Everywhere in the ground are electric currents 
present, to some extent, but more in places where large bodies of 
ore, oil, gas or water are under the ground. 

Nothing in the universe is totally ruined or fully finished. 
Everywhere is going on a building up of a new and tearing down 
of old; so in the human body, so in ore body, oil, gas, or whatever 
it be. So it is going on in all the universe, from suns to electrons 
—all and everything being under the same laws. Where any 
action takes place—energy is used or liberated. The larger the 
action in certain places, the more is there available energy, and it 
can be detected and measured by suitable means. 

We are now told by reliable authorities that all matter and 
energy are the result of electric activity, consequently, where any 
certain element is in excess, there also is electric activity corres¬ 
pondingly so, and vice versa. 

From foregoing we know that every clement has its own 
characteristic arrangement and different number of electrons in 
the atoms. If we capture by a suitable instrument the comet like 
electrons mentioned by Prof. Poincare and make them unite as 
explained by Prof. Sir Rutherford and Prof. Tyndall, they will 
arrange in their original order like they used to be in the atoms 
of the elements they left. At the time of such sudden reunion 
a characteristic sound is heard in a sensitive telephone receiver, 
if connected with the apparatus. 

The electricity of every element has its own sound, strictly 
corresponding to tables of atomic weight of above mentioned pro¬ 
fessors: Wilson, Moseley, Thompson and others. 

Thus, every element has its own specific gravltv, its own 
atomic weight, its own chemical properties, its own X-rays, its 


23 


own characteristic vibrations of electrons in molecules, and, as a 
consequence: Its own characteristic electric currents, which, when 
trasmuted into sound—are easily distinguished from each other by 
a trained ear. It is a fact we are facing—not a theory, and a fact 
as certain as the sun. 

The sounds produced by different elements differ in account 
of their different distances of the electrons in construction of the 
molecules, their varied rotating speed around the central nucleus, 
and of the quantity of the electrons in a given molecule. The 
electrons of an element distanced farther from the central mole¬ 
cular nucleous and from each others, and being fewer in quantity, 
would strike the instruments’ detecting parts fewer times in a 
given time, and so cause a lower tone than elements of higher 
evolution and more dense construction, or somewhat resembling 
the lately invented electric organ, which plays musical notes, de¬ 
tectable by any wireless receiving instrument. It is based on the 
principle that wireless sparks discharged in rapid succession pro¬ 
duce a musical note, the pitch of which depends on the rapidity 
with which the sparks are discharged. The later finding its sim- 
ilanity in the, known to everybody, violin or piano string: The 
stronger it is strung the faster and narrower are the vibrations and 
the higher the tone. The same is the case with everybody’s voice. 
Thus we find resemblances everywhere in the nature, though they 
do not look alike at first sight. There is as much difference in 
the sounds of electric currents of elements as in the sounds of 
widely related living beings. 

Human voices are photographed and are found to differ like 
faces. So is the case with minerals. Like you recognize a voice 
talking to you by telephone, or the voices of your beloved ones, 
from far away, so an experienced electric prospector identifies 
the sounds of electro-chemical vibrations of diverse minerals. It 
is like pouring, or dropping, drop by drop, different liquids on a 
resonant instrument, like a drum. Soon one would learn to dis¬ 
tinguish the liquids by sounds, not looking at them, owing to the 
varied sizes and densities of the drops causing the sounds. 

Above claims will not look exaggerated to one who knows 
about Dr. DeForest’s Oscillating Audion, making all kinds of 
sounds. 

Those claims are also strongly supported by the invention of 
Mr. Cutton, (mentioned above) what is a modification of Hughs 
induction balance, and was recommended by Paris Academy of 
Science for locating unexploded shells in the erstwhile battle¬ 
fields. In Scientific American of Nov. 13, 1915, we read: “The 
apparatus, which was thoroughly tested, is so sensitive that its 
user can detect by the sound in the head telephones the proximity 
of a mere scrap of a shell on or near the surface of the'ground, 
or even a tin can. The note sounded by a shell fragment differs 
from that caused by a buried shell, so that the trained ear easily 
distinguishes between the two. Fragments of shells or tin cans or 
boxes, on or near the surface, produce a sound as intense as that 
made by a deeply buried shell, but it is easy to distinguish between 
the two. . .” 

While Cutton’s instrument is as perfect as can be expected 


24 


for purposes mentioned, it cannot be used for detecting any min¬ 
eral deposits deep in the ground, (unless lowered to it)* as, on the 
principles its construction is based, its induction coils would have 
to be enlarged enormously, according to increasing depth of the 
mineral, and it would make it impossible to handle it in any deep 
prospecting works. 

Miller’s instrument is adaptable for any jungles, is small, ex¬ 
ceedingly sensitive, of quick action and of simple construction. 
It can be used anywhere where a good contact with the ground 
can be had, and the deep seated sources of electric currents are as 
will detected as surface deposits; the strength of the current only 
being different, but preserving its characteristics. 

One learning the sounds of the electric currents of elements, 
will be able to know the presence of them. In cases of composed 
bodies, more than one sound is heard at the same time, but each 
can be traced home, like one recognizes the sound of a certain in¬ 
strument in full play of an orchestra. All conditions being normal, 
the strength of the sound corresponds with the quantity and depth 
of its source; though, geological and other abov£ mentioned con¬ 
ditions must be had strictly in view. 

Wherever in the ground are ores, oil, gas, water, etc., in 
large quantities, there are remarkably large electric currents in 
the ground above it. The ground and rock, being in direct contact 
with such body, and being fairly good conductor of electric currents, 
conducts this energy to any and everything electro-conductive on 
the ground, be it tree, grass, animal or an apparatus Tor collecting 
the energy. Thus in a human body, walking on the ground, under 
favorable conditions, is as much electricity as in the ground below 
it; hence, the explanation of the phenomenon of water finding 
with a common twig by certain individuals. By holding in the 
hands a twig, or connecting his hands without it, his body is 
turned into a “horseshoe magnet,” his hands and feet representing 
opposite poles and causing convulsive movements In his hands, 
or in the twig held in the hands, resembling the well known experi¬ 
ments of Galvani with a frog. 

Rock and ground, laying on mineral deposits, are in direct 
contact with the mineral; the latter, as above explained, is in con¬ 
tinuous molecular agitation and in endless transformation, and, 
therefore, is a source of available energy, it is, electricity. Any 
suitable device, coming into direct contact with the ground above 
such action—is, in fact, in direct contact with the source of it. 

To detect such currents is a case identical to common electric 
wiring. The mineral and ground being the battery end and the 
apparatus or human body the electric bell or light end with de¬ 
tecting means, or some-how resembling the “plunge battery” of 
Prof. Hopkins. 

The presence of moisture in the rocks is essential for good 
conductivity of electric currents. Prof. H. Geikie, in Textbook of 
Geology, page 298, says: “By numerous observations it has been 
proven that all rocks within the accessible portion of the earth’s 
crust contain inerstitial water.” This applies most truly to rocks 
above oil and gas deposits, where the “cap-rock” serves as a good 
reservoir bottom. 


25 


Especially conspicuous are the electric currents in cases of 
oil or gas being in the ground to be prospected. The rock and 
ground, even most impervious, is full of microscopical pores and 
fractures, resembling a sponge in miniature, and, the gas and oil 
being under large pressure, subject to kinetic and gravitation laws, 
is working its way slowly, but surely through such pores, pos¬ 
sibly only in atomic quantities, and not visible by seapages or 
detectable by chemical or microscopical tests of the ground, but 
unmistakably betraying their presence by excess of electric cur¬ 
rents in the ground above such deposits. Oil and gas mixed with 
the ground are a good source of electric currents. 

Oil Age writes: “So far it has been discovered by the U. S. 
Government Bureau of Standards that electric currents of consid¬ 
erable magnitude can be produced by filtering gasoline through 
chamois skin or through some other insolating media.” Like 
action takes place in the ground and rocks where oil or gas is 
working its way to the surface, or water its way down, subject 
to gravitation and kinetic laws. By working their way through 
countless small crevices and pores in the rocks, the liquids and 
gases are divided into a multitude of infinitessimal small parts, 
continuously uniting and breaking up again. Their agregate sur¬ 
face is very large, and being exposed to unceasing friction and 
physico-chemical reaction, is a source of resulting electric currents. 
This explains the phenomenon that leaks in buried water mains 
can be detected from the surface by “divining rods,” while the 
water main itself can be located only by magnetic devices based 
on induction balance. No electro-chemical action, of any extent, 
takes place in the water of the main, and the friction surface 
against the walls of the tubing is too small to cause recordable 
currents, while all favorable conditions, for generating electric 
currents, are present at the places of leaks. Lord Kelvin electri¬ 
fied air by forcing bubbles through water. 

“Gases are elastic fluids in which the molecular force of re¬ 
pulsion is superior to the force of attraction. Expansion the most 
characteristic property of gases, is due to this force. The limit 
of the expansive force of gases is unknown. If there were no 
opposing causes, it would appear that the particles of gas might 
separate indefinitely;” (Hopkin’s Experiental Science, page 85) 
thus filling all pores in the rock or ground on its path, making 
a good flow of electric currents possible, for, we know that gases 
are good conductors of electric currents, and giving a raise of 
such currents through collision and physico-chemical action on the 
particles of the rock and ground. “Ninety per cent of oil is ac¬ 
companied by gas,” (Craig, “Oil Finding”) thus helping the de¬ 
tection of each other. 

Wallace, in “The Wonderful Century,” claims, that “there are 
hundreds of trillions of molecules in a cubic inch of gas, colliding 
with each other and surrounding bodies eight thousand millions of 
times in a second.” 

The present stage is but a phase of the endless cosmic cycle. 
Condensation—collision—nubulae; then condensation, collision, etc. 
again. The Creator has not finished his work and never will. Me 
is ever present, ever working throughout the universe—an Infinite 


26 


and Eternal Energy,” says C. M. Kilby in Popular Astronomy. A 
single atom is a model of our stellar system and of the whole 
universe, it is borne, lives, dies and is borne again and again 
like we, like everything. Nothing is lost in this giant melting pot. 
Only the electrons changing their temporary unions. Such changes, 
where it takes place in very large scale, like at the oil and gas 
pools and ore deposits, or where it takes place forcefully, like 
in Radium—can be detected by sensitive instruments fitted for 
such purposes. 

If electricity is a cause and result of every movement as ex¬ 
pressed by many scientists, then is the case also so and it can be 
detected and harnessed by suitable means, as explained by Tyn¬ 
dall, Rutherford, and others. It is obvious, that a suitable scien¬ 
tific instrument, in skilled hands, is of incalculable value in pros¬ 
pecting, and millions of dollars can be saved annually, now 
wasted on useless drillings and shaftings. 

From the foregoing, it is evident that there are no mystic 
powers connected with locating minerals, but let no man be de¬ 
ceived by these words, by imagining, that possessing one of such 
instruments he would be a successful locator. As expressed above, 
one must possess a good knowledge of geology. It takes many 
years of practical and theoretical hard study and an analyzing 
mind to succeed in this line. “A little learning Is a dangerous 
thing.” 

The electric prospecting can be applied also with great benefit 
in abandoned or exhausted fields. After the oil or gas wells are 
thoroughly drained and excessive electric currents still remain— 
it is a proof that more productive sands are untaped below. There 
are many “dry holes” that can be made producers with little addi¬ 
tional expenses, by drilling deeper, where excessive electric cur¬ 
rents and favorable structure suggest it. 

There is one more, and a very important use for electric pros¬ 
pecting. It is locating the most favorable places for oil tanks. 
Generally known is the fact that oil tanks are struck by lightning 
more often than any other structures. How serious is this question 
we see from tentative figures compiled by Oklahoma State Fire 
Marshal in June 1916, where in a single month, in Oklahoma only, 
not less than $500,000 was lost in the oil fields, the fires resulting 
from lightning striking oil tanks. After admitting above advanced 
theories, it is only natural, and the cause evident to anyone with 
an elementary understanding about electricity. Messrs. C. W. 
Shannon and L. E. Strout, in a Bulletin No. 19 of Oklahoma State 
Geological Survey, page 38, write: “There is general belief among 
oil men that certain localites are more subject to the effect of 
lightning than others,” and that “it is also claimed that tanks 
located on the prairie, away from the oil fields, is the best loca¬ 
tion. Actual observation tends to prove this,” etc. Safe places, 
or minimum danger places can be located in the oil fields by elec¬ 
tric prospecting and many millions of dollars can be saved an¬ 
nually, now going up as smoke, after the big expenses getting the 
oil out of the earth. Where the terrestrial electric currents are the 
weakest, there is the safest place for a tank and vice versa. 


27 


Afterword. 

How hazardous, for instance, it is in petroleum drilling, with¬ 
out scientific guidance, is proved by the words of Mr. Stebbins 
of Oklahoma. Leasing 22,000 acres of ground, and paying $64,000 
bonus, drilling 28 dry holes before getting a barrel of oil, and only 
40 acres out of 22,000 were productive. 

By electric prospecting all this loss could be avoided. 

And what a proven oil field is worth, we see from the follow¬ 
ing: (Arkansas Gazette, March 4th, 1915) “Washington, D. C., 
March 3rd.—The Murray resolution establishing a 440 acre domain 
for Creek nation from unallotted lands of the Cushing oil fields 
of Oklahoma was passed by the House today and sent to the 
Senate. Representative Murray said the tract was worth $30,000,- 
000.00.” To prove that this estimate is not exaggerated, we use 
the words of Mr. W. S. Blatchley: “It is estimated that Spindle 
Top Hill, in Texas, produced over 25,000,000 barrels from less 
than 200 acres.” (See Illinois State Geological Survey Bulletin 
No. 2, page 30.) 

There is more natural wealth in accessible depth of the Globe 
than the most optimistic geologist ever dreamed, but the “drv 
hole” has been the discouraging evil, retarding the progress of the 
world. To remedy an evil with the greatest practical celerity and 
thoroughness, find the man who can make a profit by stopping it. 
That’s the natural and scientific way. 

Rothschild’s business motto is: “Do not reckon upon chance.” 
But the average “wild-catter” is taking nothing but chance. With¬ 
out scientific guidance and often prejudiced against geologists, the 
over-optimistic fatalist, when striking sometimes something by ac¬ 
cident, is often the prey of some bullying and sneaking, hooking 
and crooking big organizations, who themselves avoid chance tak¬ 
ing and only in later years are getting into the habit of emplying 
scientific brains. While, philosophically speaking, nothing is lost 
when one puts down a dry hole or an empty shaft and the money 
only changed hands and is not out of circulation, nevertheless, it 
is a choke for the progress of the world; for the enterprising man 
may have got “cold feet” from such experiment, or, spending his 
last available dollar—is unable to try again. “Life” says very 
correctly: “It is not the money that is spent; it is the time that 
is spent spending the money, that causes the damage,” for the time 
of useful hands, wasted, can never be gained again. Thanks only 
to the enterprising man, the world is what it is, and will be what 
it ought to be, under proper guidance of cultivated brains in all 
lines of new enterprises. One goes not to a cobbler when he 
needs a shave, but the average man is slow to imagine the existence 
of a science beyond his ken. One often hears oil men saying: 
“The geologist guesses—I’ll guess myself and save the fee.” An 
up-to-date geologist “guesses” nothing. For every one of his opin¬ 
ions he has a stepping stone, as rigid as the laws of nature; and, 
even if it was only a guess, he would be a better guesser. 

Reliable statistics prove that of the wildcat wells located wilh- 
out reference to geological conditions in Oklahoma more than 90 
per cent are failures, while 60 to 75 per cent of wildcat wells lo- 


28 


cated by geologists are producing oil or gas. With the help of 
skilled electric prospecting this can be increased almost to 100 
per cent. 

This is a line where flattery of unintelligent public and stern 
avoidance of ideas will not bring success. 

Concluding with the words of Sir Sidney Burrard: “I have 
now had the great privilege of placing certain problems before 
you, and suggest for your consideration.” 










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